With 9 out of 10 of the top performing municipalities being governed by the DA, there are many South Africans who will be voting for better local governance. This has put the ANC under pressure in metros such as Nelson Mandela Bay and Gauteng.
The ANC’s leader is certainly under pressure and his ability to lead is being questioned by even some of the organisations’ top supporters of old.
Translated into business terms, the ANC certainly appears to be in crisis management and their competitors are working hard to take their market share.
But what happens in an organisation with as much strife as the ANC?
An analysis of the four quadrants of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) (Drs Robert Kaplan and David Norton) makes this easier to understand.
But firstly let’s mention that the BSC is a framework guiding the transition from strategy to daily performance areas, allowing leaders to set the correct performance measures in place and thereby keeping an organisation on track.
The four key areas of the Balanced Scorecard are:
The Learning and Growth Area – this area relates to the skills level of the human capital and the willingness to change, to bring innovation and to embrace new technology. In other words how engaged are the employees?
The Business Process Area – this area relates to how well and how easily the business functions on a daily basis. How effectively the business processes and services the clients’ needs and demands, in other words.
The Customer Area – this quadrant relates to customer satisfaction levels, to the kinds of customers we retain and the types of products or services we render to retain them, but from their perspective.
The Financial Area – the fourth quadrant looks at and reports on the financial status of the organisation. Companies are in business for profit so this will always remain a very important and well measured area of any business.
The theory is simple:
Should you have engaged employees, they will bring innovation and skill that keep your processes smooth and relevant to the clients, who in turn will be happy and your retention will be good, allowing for great growth, profitability and good balance sheets.
Makes sense doesn’t it? And in effect this is what the DA have been doing.
They have been building a strong organisation based on engaging the right people who are skilled, capable and delivering. As a result their processes are working. We called in a pothole repair around the corner from us not too long ago. Within 24 hours it was repaired. Great processes lead to satisfied clients. Satisfied clients lead to better financials. In the DA’s case this is translating to more voters.
Now wouldn’t it be great if the ANC took this approach and recognised client satisfaction as a leading indicator of process requirements? Gosh I don’t really care; it could even be the EFF who did this. Just as long as the people of South Africa start becoming the priority that drives political thinking.
© Debbie Engelbrecht
Debbie Engelbrecht is the CEO of Staff Training, established in 2001. Staff Training offers various management courses, including Developing Your Management Potential I, Developing Your Management Potential II, and Developing Your Management Potential III.