|
This book is a factual casestudy of the financial management turnaround of the Department of Justice in South Africa that faced massive corruption and record keeping delinquency. The former South African President requested help from big business and the author was proposed for the job.
After two years the Minister of Justice reported to Parliament:
“Honourable Members, Last year the Dept. obtained, for the first time ever, an Unqualified Audit on its vote account in respect of the 2003/04 financial year. This was an exciting moment because it had never been done in the history of the Department. This major achievement was made possible by the commitment and dedication of the former Director-General, Adv. Vusi Pikoli; the CFO Alan Mackenzie and all the staff. For this I salute and thank them.”
It was a privilege to be requested to formulate and lead a massive national turnaround strategy that international consultancies had turned down. At the time I was the CEO of a national NGO tasked to assist Government, at the highest level, by providing advanced business skills in the fight against crime. As the strategies took hold I found myself in a locked down secret meeting with the captains of both the public and private sectors. The country's investigative elite had uncovered an organized crime plot to derail the anti-corruption strategy that I was leading. Rather than deter me, it gave me the strength to proclaim the meaning and purpose of the strategies that were in place. I began to view the intermittent plots to derail our intent as love letters declaring the success that was to be. Surely the plots were the result of the success of the strategies being implemented by the unstoppable team of thousands of committed people. Against this background I caught a plane to go to a meeting in Parliament where I was to address a select committee on my progress with prosecuting alleged offenders as a result of the largest forensic audit in the history of the country. Arriving at my destination I was attacked by two armed gunmen, and I was shot, in the presence of a group of people, five times at point blank range. Each bullet narrowly missed my heart but fortunately I was in the company of expert medical people and within 15 minutes I was being operated upon in a nearby hospital by a world-renowned surgeon who saved my life. What I recall was that it was all painless. I'm sure that a pinprick causes more pain and most certainly I can assure you that you need more resolve to face the disappointment of diluted hospital jelly! The moral of the story is that the strategies proved to be unstoppable and to the thousands that adopted them and made them their own to ensure that the vision was delivered, this book says, thank you. It is they that are the heroes of this story as it is they that showed themselves to be unstoppable.
These days, the playing fields that earned me the alias of the unstoppable strategist are a fading memory. The framework for success remains relevant and is as crisp for me as the day that they were formulated, and it is they that are the subject of this book.
Create a performance driven measurable vision and support it with dynamic strategic tactics that are well communicated to people that give it meaning and purpose because they believe that together it can be done. Do this and you will have the core of the book’s framework for success. When the framework is owned by all they will achieve the “impossible” as it becomes unstoppable. Others have taken the book and have used it to achieve remarkable success. Success lies in following the basic steps outlined in the book and if you do it you will “make it happen.”
|
