I have added a new page to this site containing this absolutely wonderful modern fairy tale by renowned Transactional Analysis founding father and expert Claude Steiner, with his gracious permission. I have found this tale to be very inspirational in my own life and I have shared it with many people over the years, people who have attended workshops I have run or who just needed a little inspiration in their lives.

I hope you will find it as inspirational as I have. Enjoy.

• YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE YOU…

The way you are, the way you want to be.

• YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO GROW…

To change, to become, to strive, to reach for any goal, to be limited only by your degree of talent and amount of effort.

• YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY…

In a marriage, in a family, in any relationship, in any group. The right to keep a part of your life secret, no matter how trivial or how important, merely because you want it to be that way. You have the right to be alone a part of each day, each week and each year, to spend time with yourself.

• YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE LOVED AND TO LOVE…

To be accepted, cared for, adorned and the right to fulfill that right.

• YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO ASK QUESTIONS…

Of anyone at anytime, on any matter that affects your life, so long as it is your business to do so, to be listened to and taken seriously.

• YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO SELF-RESPECT…

To do everything you need to do to increase your self-esteem so long as you hurt no-one in doing so.

• YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE HAPPY…

To find something in the world that is meaningful and rewarding to you and gives you a sense of completeness.

• YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE TRUSTED…

To trust and to be taken at your word. If you are wrong, you have the right to be given a chance to make good, if  possible.

• YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE FREE…

As long as you act responsibly and are mindful of the rights of others and of those obligations that you entered into freely.

• YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO WIN…

To succeed, to make plans, to see those plans fulfilled, to become the best you that you can possibly become.

- MARK ALAN JORGENSEN

A full, rich life is the birthright of every person. What such a life might look like depends on the individual – we are all different and each of us has our own dreams, desires, value system and preferences. Each person is unique,and each person is deserving of respect, understanding and the ability to choose and achieve their life goals.

A coach is someone trained to help individuals look at their lives, decide what is working and not working for them, and to plan to change what is not working so as to achieve a balanced and fulfilling life. Unlike a psychotherapist, a coach will not fix what was broken in the past. A coach helps the individual look at the present in the light of what they would like in the future, and then take action to achieve that future – so from insight into the present situation to action to determine the preferred future.

A coach will not do but will hold the individual accountable for achieving milestones along the way. A coach merely helps the individual clarify hopes and dreams and turn them into achievable, realistic and time-bound steps which can be measured easily.

As a trained coach I will help help you to do these things so that you can realise your dreams – create your own Bright Scenario!

Coaching is most effectively done via Skype, but can also be done face-to-face.

If you would like to see if a coaching process would be beneficial to you then might I suggest you download the Coaching Self-Assessment Document from the box on the left of this site and complete it. Then read the article Life Coaching – From Insight to Action which explains in more detail the process and the Life Wheel concept.

If you would like to contact me please do so by e-mail at info@brightscenarios.co.za or on my mobile (+27)791632463 or on Skype where my Skype ID is tonymac04 (feel free to leave a voicemail if I’m not online when you call).

Whichever way you contact me I will get back to you within 36 hours.

The first session is free and you can thereafter decide whether or not coaching would be helpful to you – I will totally respect your decision either way, of course.

2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.

3. Buy a DVR/video tape and record your late night shows and get more sleep.

4. When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement, ‘My purpose is to __________ today.’

5. Live with the 3 E’s — Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy.

6. Play more games and read more books than you did last year.

7. Make time to practice meditation and prayer. They provide us with daily fuel for our busy lives.

8. Spend time with people over the age of 70 and under the age of 6.

9. Dream more while you are awake.

10. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.

11. Drink green tea and plenty of water. Eat blueberries, wild Alaskan salmon, broccoli, almonds & walnuts.

12. Try to make at least three people smile each day.

13. Clear clutter from your house, your car, your desk and let new energy flow into your life.

14. Don’t waste your precious energy on gossip, OR issues of the past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.

15. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.

16. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a college kid with a maxed-out charge card.

17. Smile and laugh more. It will keep the negative blues away.

18. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

20. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

21. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

22. Make peace with your past so it won’t spoil the present.

23. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

24. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

25. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: ‘In five years, will this matter?’

26. Forgive everyone for everything.

27. What other people think of you is none of your business.

28. Remember, God heals.

29. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

30. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

31. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.

32. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

33. The best is yet to come.

34. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

35. Do the right thing!

36. Call your family often. (Or email them!!!)

37. Each night before you go to bed complete the following statements: I am thankful for __________.

38. Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed.

39. You only have one ride through life so make the most of it and enjoy the ride.

40. Please forward this to everyone you care about. I just did.

Service in South Africa

Who has never experienced bad service? We have all had the experience of not getting what we expected from a service situation, whether in a retail store, a restaurant, a public service office or even the local health professionals office.

In the normal run of things this is just irritating, and we very often respond by simply taking our custom elsewhere.

In a country such as South Africa, however, poor service can be a lot more than just irritating. It can be something that threatens even the stability of the society in which we live.

The reason for this is that South Africa is a hugely unequal society in which the gap between those who have and those who don’t, already very wide, is becoming wider by the day.

The Gini co-efficient, which indicates statistically the gap between any two variables, is often used to rate the level of inequality in a society, or at least the perception of that inequality. The co-efficient is a scale from 0 to 1, where 0 represents a totally equal society and 1 a totally unequal society. At present South Africa’s Gini co-efficient is hovering about 0.7, in other words, on the high side, indicating a very unequal spread of the good things in life between those who have them, mainly white, and those who don’t, mainly Black people.

This is mainly a result of the deliberate separation of races and consequent unequal division of resources in the country which was the social engineering of apartheid. This is in spite of the ruling party winning resounding mandates in the past four general elections based on the slogan “A better life for all.”

So far, after 15 years of a non-racial, non-sexist democratic dispensation, although in absolute terms things have improved, there is still the perception, as shown by the Gini co-efficient, of gross inequality still reflecting the old lines of division.

In such a situation poor service can be like a match to dry tinder. Indeed we see daily evidence of the anger and disillusionment of the majority of South Africans who feel they are still being given the short end of the social and economic stick.

So whereas service in an organisational sense is a factor in the survival of the organisation, in the social sense service delivery is critical for the ongoing stability and well-being of the whole of society.

What we need to grasp as a country is that we cannot afford to provide poor service any longer, because we are gong down a path that will lead to massive social unrest if the trend is not reversed, if the people don’t soon get to feel that their needs are being addressed in a meaningful way, in way that they can feel the difference. We need as a country to reverse the trend of the worsening Gini co-efficient and get it moving in the other direction, the direction of a more equitable distribution of resources and the access to resources and services of quality.

It is my view that the situation is a management problem, a problem of the managerial will to put into effect the many excellent policies that have been put in place by the Government over the past 15 years. If these policies were put into place effectively, with a sense of urgency, the negative trend of the Gini could be reversed and turned into a positive trend.

So what to do about this problem?

What drives service?

Service is driven by passion, by a commitment to deliver, to make a difference. In the private sector the drive is usually one of profit, but in then public sector profit is not a driver, so other things have to be found to harness people’s energy and give it the direction needed to produce superior service delivery.

As I said, it is a management problem, a problem of productivity and the particular way in which productivity can be envisaged in the public service. An effective model for this is the service chain leading to the moment of truth, the moment of the delivery of service to the recipient of that service, the person who needs the service.

The chain of service

To understand the chain of service it is helpful to use the model I call the basic systems theory model. This model shows how inputs are processed to produce outputs. An important factor to bear in mind is that every output becomes an input into someone else’s process, thus creating a chain of service.

A very simple graphic illustration of the basic systems theory model shows how these three aspect fit together. Management’s task is to ensure process improvement, the increasingly efficient use of resources to achieve an optimal productivity ratio. Productivity is expressed as the ratio of Output over Input, which should, if the process is productive, be greater than 1. Or put slightly differently, the value of the output of the process must always be greater than the value of the inputs used in the process. If this is not the case, then the process should be questioned, the inputs reduced or the outputs increased with no increase in process costs.

This is in fact is one goal of performance management, to maximise the efficiency of all processes under management.

As alluded to above, all outputs are designed to be inputs into the next process. Another way to express this is to say that every organisation exists to service needs, and for the organisation to be effective it has to have a full understanding of the needs it seeks to service. Without a constant examination of the needs of the end users the organisation runs the risk of producing something that no-one in effect needs. In that case the output is shear waste and the inputs have been used to no good purpose; in other words, in the parlance of the Public Finance Management Act, those inputs represent “fruitless and wasteful expenditure.”

So another goal of performance management is to ensure the effectiveness of all processes under management, to ensure that the outputs are indeed what the end user needs or wants.

This point is important enough to bear repeating: Every organisation exists to service needs, and if it does not the organisation will become extinct because there is then no justification for its continued existence.

Optimising service is the overall goal of performance management.

The organisation needs to organise itself appropriately the achieve this. This will be in terms of the organisation’s strategy, structure, staff and the policies and procedures set up to make it all happen.

As Tom and Birgit Hanson write in their excellent little book Who Will Do What by When: “Your personal reputation and the success of your organisation depend on your ability to make and fulfill promises.” Every manager in an organisation must have as a goal to increase their own and their people’s ability to make and keep promises.

How well they do this is determined mainly by the quality of the relationships they have with their people. To quote the Hansons again: “The most important variable in determining the performance and retention of top employees is their relationship with their primary supervisor.”

So all the processes, policies and procedures in the organisation should be geared to support and enhance these relationships. And performance management is essentially the development of this relationship. Without a quality relationship between manager and direct reports at all levels in the organisation, there will be no quality of service.

This is well captured by Stephen R. Covey in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People:“Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.” This is the first principle of performance management.

Performance management is essentially people management, and if a manager is not managing the performance of his or her people, then it can reasonably be asked what they are actually managing.

People Management

Management is a relationship-building role. The relationship that matters most, as we have seen above, is the one between managers and their direct reports.

This relationship must always be one in which the “first principle” of performance management is upheld, i.e. the manager must at all times treat employees as she/he would want them to treat the organisation’s best customer. This is not negotiable, it is the most important principle that a manager should adhere to.

How to make this happen

Relationships between people are built primarily by them communicating with each other. And so the quality of the interpersonal communication between them becomes of paramount importance in creating a performance-driven culture within the organisation.

It is also important to recognise that this communication does not take place in a vacuum, it is not separate from all the communication going on in an organisation.

So the organisation’s leadership and management need to take a holistic view of communication, to see communication in its totality in the organisation.

This means that in order to create a performance-driven culture in an organisation a holistic communication strategy is needed, one which will guide all the communication of the organisation, internal and external, verbal and written.

In developing such a strategy it is important that the difference between transmission of a message and communication is understood. That is, two-way communication is more effective, especially in driving performance, than one-way communication.

In general,. all communication within or external to the organisation should reflect the organisation’s values. In doing so it is vitally important that there is no gap between the stated values and the real values – in other words, it is vitally important that all people at all levels, walk the talk, that the values do not remain sterile statements designed to look good in organisational publications and on boardroom walls, but are statements of the reality within the organisation. A gap between stated and real values, breeds cynicism and distrust where enthusiasm and trust are needed.

For example, if a corporate advertisement states that the organisation is committed to quality in all it does, but the employees know that in fact management has ordered serious corner-cutting to maximise margins, employees will be placed in an unacceptable double bind – wanting to support their organisation but not wanting to misrepresent the truth they will be effectively disempowered.

Similarly in the internal communications of the organisation more should be attention paid to the concerns of the targets of the communication than to management’s concerns.

It is important that all communications strengthen the primary management relationship – that between manager and direct reports.

Facilitate communication

Leaders and managers have a responsibility to facilitate communication throughout the organisation. To help us understand this it is helpful to look at communication modes and opportunities.

Internal communication comprises three primary modes: verbal, written and the more one-on-one of inter-personal communication.

All internal communications should constantly promote the organisation’s values, especially the value of people.

The objectives of internal communication are:

• To promote cohesion by emphasising employee interests not management values;

• Convey information, specifically what employees need to know;

• To facilitate change – the fear of change can be reduced by keeping employees informed

• Values - the organisation’s values need to be understood and committed to by all. There should be no gap between stated and real values

External communication comprises all the advertising and public relations types of communication and these should be seen in the context of a comprehensive communications strategy.

Performance management is essentially an inter-personal communication process in which, if it is to be effective, three basic psychological needs of the people involved need to be met.

These psychological needs are:

a. the need for respect, to be treated with dignity as an individual;

b. the need for understanding, to feel understood as a human being with feelings and aspirations; and,

c. the need for involvement, to feel part of something, to have a contribution to make.

Each of these needs is met by a specific communication skill of which, as Covey has said: “The ability to do them well is critical to your effectiveness.”

To show respect means to maintain or enhance the self-esteem of the other person, not to do anything that might lower their self-esteem. This in turn means to look for something in the person’s performance that can honestly be praised. Always notice and comment on positive performance because commenting only on the negative tends to encourage poor performance.

The 5^th Habit in Covey’s model of the highly effective person is “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” This is the skill which addresses the second psychological need of understanding. The quality of being that is required here is that of empathy, the ability to place oneself, without judgement, in the other person’s frame of reference, to see things from their point of view. In Covey’s words, “You have to build the skills of empathic listening on a base of character that inspires openness and trust.”

The need for involvement implicates the principle of synergy – creative co-operation. This means not imposing solutions on people but on collaboratively looking for solutions and valuing the differences between people. Differences can be sources of strength when the focus is on finding the “win/win” solution. Having found such a solution to whatever the problem is, the manager then provides support without taking away responsibility.

A Performance Management Cycle

A simple performance management cycle is illustrated below. It starts with the performance agreement meeting in line with Covey’s habit: “Begin with the end in mind.”

In this meeting the manager and his or her report will agree on the purpose of the job in line with the organisational vision/mission. In the course of their discussion they will agree the standards and milestones that will be measured in the performance period.

This is what Covey terms a “Win/win performance agreement” in which the participants agree results, the manager undertakes to provide appropriate support and otherwise to get out of the way of the employee. They also agree to have regular performance-based discussions, the timing of which will be based on the employee’s needs and the complexity of the tasks.

Such performance agreements are based on trust, which is the basis for performance. How the manager and employee communicate can either develop or destroy trust.

The next phase is to monitor performance against the agreed standards or milestones. If the performance of the employee is falling below the agreed standards, the manager needs to provide feedback non-defensively, focusing on the problem and on how to get the performance back up to standard, rather than attacking or blaming the employee for the lack of performance. It’s a problem to be solved not punished and represents a learning opportunity for both.

It is critically important also to acknowledge achievement of agreed results.

Trust, just like muscle, is built over time.

As the Hansons wrote: “The words themselves are not magical: how you say something creates the context for the communication.”

The potential of effective communication

If the total communication effort in the organisation is congruent and serves to strengthen the primary relationship between employee and direct supervisor, keeping the organisation’s vision and mission in focus, the result will be a performance-driven culture.

In such a culture everyone will be focussed on appropriate service delivery, and this focus is achieved and maintained by effective communication

A performance-driven culture

In a performance-driven culture the overlap between individual values, wants, goals and the desire for work with meaning and the organisation’s values, goals, strategic objectives and the satisfaction of stakeholders will be great. It is from this overlap, as illustrated below, that the energy, commitment drive and passion for service will come. The overlap is achieved by effective communication in a developmental performance management system which emphasises communication and the development of trust before measurement.

Too often performance management is seen by management as an exercise in measurement and so elaborate measurement tools and systems are put in place without doing anything to engage the employees and build their trust. Measurement becomes the objective instead of performance, and this can lead, as it very often does, especially in the Public Service, to manipulation of the measurement system instead of focusing on the development of the people.

Performance management then becomes just another activity that managers and employees, rather unwillingly, have to perform in order to get HR off their backs. Then the natural desire of people to contribute, to create and to make a difference is smothered in red tape and piles of unfriendly and complicated forms. Filling in the forms becomes the thing.

I am not suggesting for one moment that measurement is not important. It is vitally important, but if it is done in a context of little or no trust, if the people in the organisation are not committed to achieving the organisation’s strategic goals, then measurement will be seen as threatening, as something to be manipulated and service delivery will take second place to compliance.

It is my view that this way of looking at performance management in the Public Sector has led to exactly this situation and this is the reason for the problems South Africa faces with regard to service delivery, why there are tyres burning in the streets and people are showing many signs of anger and disillusionment.

Economist Iraj Abedian, writing in the Mail and Guardian of 19 June 2009 highlighted exactly this problem: “… blatant condoning of poor performance and suboptimal use of public resources has a strong systemic and corruptive impact on the operational efficiency of the public sector..”

The Public Service has a programme designed to improve service delivery called “Batho Pele”, which means “People First.” Its time Public Service manager put it into practice this value and treated their employees as they would have their employees treat the very valuable public of South Africa, a public which is in dire need of service delivery of a high standard.

For further reading

Covey, Stephen R: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People London: Simon & Schuster 1992

Hanson, Tom & Hanson, Birgit: Who Will Do What by When? Power Publications 2007

Keavney, Jack: Peak Performance Sydney: McGraw-Hill 1996

Kohn, Stephen E. & O’Connell: 6 Habits of Highly Effective Bosses Fanklin Lakes NJ: Career Press 2005

My academic qualifications are a BA in Sociology (specializing in Group Dynamics) from the University of South Africa  (Unisa) and a post-graduate Higher Diploma in Adult Education (H. Dip. Ed. Ad) from the University of the Witwatersrand. My research report, entitled “Management Development and Adult Education: Putting the Theories into Practice”, was awarded a distinction. I have also completed the Unisa Centre for Industrial and Organisational Psychology’s course on Group Process Facilitation.

I have wide and in-depth experience and knowledge of group facilitation, especially in regard to team development in the context of project management.

On a more personal note: I am a 65-year-old retired person who is still an active adult educator and writer. I live in Pretoria, South Africa, with my wife and 6year-old daughter. My younger daughter’s name is Caitlin after the wife of Dylan Thomas. I am an avid reader and also love listening to music of most kinds but in particular jazz and classical.

The journey of my life